Russian Mennonite Related Groups

Russian Mennonite Anabaptist groups are groups that trace the ancestry to Mennonites who lived, at one time, in Russia. Originating in the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, these Mennonite groups migrated eastward over time, into Prussia and eventually into Russia in search of new land. By the late 1800s, however, because of conflict with the Russian state over language, public school, and military service one third of Russian Mennonites immigrated to North America from 1874-1880.[1] After the Bolshevik Revolution many other Russian Mennonites left Russia in migrations in 1922, 1930, and 1947, fleeing famine and increasingly oppressive communist rule.[2] Mennonites in the United States and Canada helped these Russian Mennonite immigrants move to Canada and various countries throughout Latin America. In later years because of land constraints, various Russian Mennonite groups in Canada also immigrated to Latin America. Today there are many Russian Mennonite groups throughout North,Central, and South America.

This is the second volume in the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) sponsored global history project, and it covers the Mennonite experience in Europe. Included in this book is an extensive chapter on Russian Mennonite history from the initial settlements in Russia to the Russian Mennonite diaspora in the 19th and 20th centuries.